"Good Luck Charlie"

Children can make you do lots of things you wouldn't do normally. Crawling on the floor regularly. Eating chicken nuggets for dinner. Becoming way too familiar with picture books. Purchasing Neosporin every time you go grocery shopping.

Most of these things are done with some resistance, perhaps some groveling, maybe some embarrassment. As a 40-year-old adult, you sometimes sit there wondering, what the heck am I doing, like that line from the Talking Heads' song to 'Once in a Lifetime': "You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?" or "My God, What Have I Done?"

But kids also introduce experiences to the parent that they would never do, and it's not a bad thing. Watching your kid play in a youth basketball or baseball game. Teaching a child to ride a bike. Building a tree fort. Sharing a plate of macaroni and cheese. It is true: having children brings out the inner child in a parent. Which can actually be fun.

This brings me to 'Good Luck Charlie.' For a few years now, my kids, ages 6 and 8, have watched this show. We do not place big restrictions on TV viewing, though we're mindful of what our kids watch and how long they watch. We use our judgment to know when to turn if off, like when one of our kids does not respond to anything we say. (Then we issue loud, stern directives: "No TV for two days!")

"Good Luck Charlie" is a show we let our kids watch without concern. I probably started watching this alongside my children during a sick day. Disney doesn't have many good shows, but 'Good Luck Charlie' is certainly one. It chronicles a family of seven - which can only happen happily in fiction - living in suburban Denver and their day to day, mostly humorous, experiences, misunderstandings, and challenges. I wouldn't call them problems, because they don't qualify. The show, which ends each episode with the oldest daughter Teddy videotaping a tidbit of advice to her youngest sister Charlie, and where the show gets it name, is light, well casted, and surprisingly well acted.

And now it is apparently over.

I noticed this while flipping through the Channel Guide and saw the phrase "Series Finale" and the episode name "Good Bye Charlie."

This came up on me out of nowhere; I assumed the show would run for at least two or three more seasons. The eldest son is in college, Teddy is about to go to college, and then there's a middle school/high school kid named Gabe, Charlie who is about 3, and a baby whose name escapes me and I don't feel like Googling it.

My son has DVR'd the finale, and I will watch it, though I am kind of hesitant. I don't want it to be over, and by not watching it I am putting off the inevitable. It's a good thing that "Good Luck Charlie" is on all the time, and though the show lasted only four seasons, it seems like it's always current. It is true that we've seen a lot of milestones and changes in the characters, but for the most part they don't look too different than they did that first season.

"Good Luck Charlie" was one of the only shows that my entire family could watch and enjoy. (My son is still wondering what "Breaking Bad" is about.) Back when I was a kid in the 80s, it seemed that many shows were both kid and adult-appropriate. "Family Ties", "The Cosby Show", "Growing Pains" all come to mind. But there were also shows outside the "family" genre that my parents and I watched, including "Mork and Mindy", "ChiPs", "Knight Rider", and "The Greatest American Hero." While most of these shows were not Emmy-award worthy, they were examples of "safe" family programming, with a decent narrative story. Today, most network primetime shows are either too edgy or reality garbage.

"Good Luck Charlie" was neither of these. It was just soft enough to be a Disney show, but it had many of the right qualities for network TV: good characters, good writing, and credible storylines.

I don't know why the show ended its run. I would guess that some of the actors wanted more money than Disney wanted to pay. I would also guess that some of the actors wanted to branch off into more sophisticated work, especially the younger actors. It is probably easy to get pigeonholed as a 'Disney actor' and never do anything else.

But we -- hold on, I -- will miss the show. I will miss the experience of watching it with my kids, and laughing together. This is not to be minimized. There is something to be said for having a show that can appeal across generations, and it doesn't happen a lot.

"Good Luck Charlie" will live on in reruns - my kids have already discovered it on Netflix. And we will probably watch them again. It's a good lesson for kids to learn, that all good things come to an end, including TV shows.

Now I just have to find the strength the watch the last one.

The Return of the Sunday Times

It is true that reading news on the web is convenient - and efficient.

These days, most news organizations have staffs that update breaking news, financial stories, and of course Internet readers' favorite: the news of the weird. For some reason, maybe because people associate the Internet with a lack of seriousness, a lot of web sites include features about people doing stupid things.

But the web (in my opinion) is not the best medium for serious, thought-provoking journalism, nor is it a place where people read for long periods of time. Web readers - mostly - want nuggets of news, in digest form, the headlines and maybe a little more, maybe two paragraphs.

Which is one of the reasons why I recently resubscribed to the Sunday New York Times.

I had subscribed to nytimes online for years but I've never held my ipad in my hand for two hours to flip through the sections of the website. Maybe others can, but reading on a screen is not that pleasurable.

I want paper.

So now my Sundays consist of coffee, food of some kind, and reading 10 or 12 articles, columns, essays,and features. The Times has arguably the smartest writers on its staff, and, even if you don't agree with them, they arouse thought.

Our local Sunday paper, the Hartford Courant, just isn't cutting it. While the potential is there to report on interesting Connecticut stories, there is no edge to the paper's writing, and the story selection is boring. The writing is tired, except for a few reporters. This is probably the case at many mid-size daily and Sunday papers.

The Sunday Times reports on science and psychology, has great, thoughtful sports features, insightful columnists, and - you can tell - editors and writers who spend a lot of time thinking about angles to stories, and each sentence they will write.

This is what I want in a paper. In a 'paper' paper, not the online version.

Since I don't have the time to read it every day, the Sunday paper will suffice. It usually takes a few days to get through it anyway.

For 4 dollars a week, not a bad deal to have this delivered to your driveway.